The Poetry of William Dunbar

Scotnotes #12

by R.D.S. Jack

Along with his contemporary Robert Henryson, William Dunbar is the foremost figure of Scottish medieval literature. Writing as a court poet during the reign of James IV, Dunbar was at the intellectual heart of Scotland's Renaissance. His poetry is among the greatest in the Scots language: sophisticated, versatile and stylish, the work of a master of considerable literary genius.

Ronald Jack's Scotnotes study guide examines a number of Dunbar's most important works - The Thrissil and the Rois, The Lament for the Makaris, The Golden Targe, The Twa Mariit Wemen and the Wedo and others - and explains the background, history, language and influences for senior school pupils and students at all levels.

62 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1997

About the author

Ronald D.S. Jack, F.R.S.E., F.E.A. (1941 - 2016) was Emeritus Professor of Mediaeval and Scottish Literature at Edinburgh University. He was a distinguished scholar of medieval drama, early Scottish literature, Robert Burns, and J.M. Barrie.

His books include Scottish Prose 1550-1700 (1972); The Italian Influence on Scottish Literature (1972); Scottish Verse 1560-1660 (1978); Alexander Montgomerie (1985); History of Scottish Literature, Volume 1 (1988); Patterns of Divine Comedy (1989); William Dunbar (1996), The Mercat Anthology of Early Scottish Literature (2000, with P.A.T. Rozendaal) and Scotland in Europe (2006, with Tom Hubbard). In 2010, the 150th anniversary of Barrie's birth, a reprint appeared, from humming earth, of The Road to the Never Land. Rodopi published another monograph, Myths and the Myth-maker: A Literary Account of J.M. Barrie's Formative Years in December 2010.